When a band scores a hit with their debut album, it’s reasonable to assume their record company might hope for a swift follow-up. However, when Van Halen sought to pursue the US Top 20 success of their landmark self-titled debut album with a follow-up, Van Halen II, it was the band, rather than their label, who applied the pressure.
Listen to ‘Van Halen II’ here.
The backstory: “Ted couldn’t believe how tight we were compared to the first record”
Following the February 1978 release of Van Halen, the Californian quartet spent the remainder of the year promoting the album. They spent months on the road, spreading the gospel with high-profile shows in support of acts such as Montrose, Journey and Black Sabbath, and only returned home early in December. Yet, barely a week later, the group reconvened in the studio and embarked on the sessions that would sire Van Halen II. It was an entirely deliberate move, too, for all concerned knew they’d honed the material to perfection – even if their drive and proficiency caught their production team on off guard.
Speaking to Record Review magazine in April 1979, just weeks after the release of Van Halen II, guitarist Eddie Van Halen recalled how surprised producer Ted Templeman had been by the group’s rapid evolution. “Ted… said when we were rehearsing, he couldn’t believe how tight we were compared to the first record.”
The recording: “The Doors and Frank Sinatra had recorded at Sunset Sound”
With hindsight, though, the circumstances surrounding the recording of Van Halen II differed considerably from those in which the group had created its predecessor. When they cut their debut album, Van Halen were a precociously gifted young band with little studio experience; yet when they returned for Van Halen II, they’d become hardened road dogs who knew their songs inside out – and they firmly believed a classic record was within their grasp.
All concerned, however, agreed that there was no need to fix what wasn’t broken when it came to recording Van Halen II. As before, the group tracked most of the album live in the studio with the same production team, and they returned to the same facilities, Los Angeles’ Sunset Sound Recorders, where artists such as The Doors and Frank Sinatra had cut many of their classic albums. Indeed, Eddie Van Halen liked Sunset Sound’s set-up so much that when he later kitted out his own 5150 Studio, he installed a desk similar to the vintage Putnam 610 console used on Van Halen II.
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Van Halen were comfortable in Sunset Sound, but they were also confident they had an arsenal of great songs to choose from. Indeed, a couple of Van Halen II’s best cuts, such as Beautiful Girls (formerly known as Bring On The Girls) and the energetic, Judas Priest-esque Somebody Get Me A Doctor, had already been established as fan favourites.
“Somebody Get Me A Doctor was written around the same time as Runnin’ With The Devil,” Eddie Van Halen told Record Review. “It was an old favourite of ours and [of] people who used to follow us around before we ever had a record cut… Somebody in the band said why don’t we save that one for the next album.
